Case Study: The Joker
by Paul D. Mattings
Summary: Can Dr. Jeremiah Arkham crack the mystery that is The Joker?


Case Study: Joker

_November 17, 2008. This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham recording on case 4213, Patient 82591J, real name unknown, alias Joker. Joker continues to be an enigma. All my sessions with him have gotten nowhere. No matter how hard I try, he always seems to turn the conversation in directions he wants to go, not the directions I want him to go. He's extraordinarily intelligent, despite his sickness. _

_ To give an example of what I am talking about I will edit into this recording a recording I took of our session from today:_

Dr. Jeremiah Arkham waited patiently outside the cell door as the guards went inside and cuffed the Joker's legs to his chair and cuffed his wrists together. Last week, foolishly hoping Joker could be trusted, he had told the guards that they didn't have to cuff him for his therapy session. Thirty minutes into the session, Joker had leapt from his chair and attempted to choke him to death. He still had the bruises on his neck to prove it. Luckily, he knew enough self-defense to get Joker off of him and get out the door.

"He's all set, Dr. Arkham," one of the guards said.

"Thank you," Arkham said, and went into the cell, closing the door behind him. Sitting behind a table that had been brought into the room for this purpose, Joker looked calm, casually resting his chin on his hands. His make-up was dirty and cracking. As part of his therapy, Dr. Arkham had decided he could wear his make-up and live out his delusion until he was ready to be free of it.

"Morning, Dr. Arkham," Joker said, running his tongue over his lips.

"Good morning, Joker. Time to change your make-up yet?" Joker gave him a confused look. Arkham had already discovered that, most days, Joker wasn't aware that he even had make-up on at all, at least until he decided to change it. "Never mind, Joker. I trust that today we won't have a repeat of last week's outburst." At this Joker smiled.

"Well, not with this thing shackled to my ass," he said, indicating the chair.

"Yes, of course." Arkham took a seat. "I want to talk about your father today, Joker. We were talking about him last time. He gave those scars on your face, right?" Joker tilted his head a little to the left and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. His tongue flicked out over his lips and he squinted one eye, then shook his head.

"Well who told you that?"

"You did."

"No, no. My father had nothing to do with these. Would you like to know how I got them?"

"Yes, I would."

"Well," Joker said, leaning forward, licking his lips and becoming quite serious, "you see, when I was in college, I fell in love. But, I wasn't just in love with one woman, I was in love with two, and I couldn't figure out which one I loved more. It drove me _crazy_. It was all I thought about, day and night. Well, one morning, I caught site of myself in the mirror and I realized that I had looked terrible and sad for a month, that I needed to be happier. So, I picked up a pocket knife from my desk and I did this to myself." Dr. Arkham took a note. "What did you just write there?"

"I took a note about your story."

"What about it?"

"That's not really important to you."

"Do you like what you do, Doctor?"

"Pardon me?"

"Your job. Do you like it?"

"I do." Joker laughed. "What's funny about that?"

Joker swayed back and forth in his seat for a moment, smiling and looking up at the ceiling. "You people and your nine-to-five jobs. You wake up in the morning, you go to work. You go home at night and stare at the spouse you've hated for years but can't bring yourself to leave and go to bed at night to have emotionless sex in the same old boring position you've been doing it for years before you role over and drift off into the short-lived bliss of sleep before you wake up and do it all over again, and you never do an impetuous, crazy thing in your life." He laughed again.

"Do you consider yourself above all this?"

"I'm an agent of chaos, Doctor. I'm ahead of the curve. I'm the next step in human evolution. Your lives are boring and simple, utterly ridiculous and stupid. I'm here to shake you up."

"And this includes killing people?"

"Tell me, does Batman still prowl the night? Of course he does. I see he's a wanted man now. They've got it all wrong. He's not a killer. He's far too pure for that. Still, imagine if ol' Batsy really did fall off the high-dive." He burst into laughter again.

_Without knowing it, Joker opens his mind through his stories about his life, which change all the time. In the time he has been here, he has told me six different stories as to how he got the scars on his face. I believe that, through either some sort of physical or mental trauma, he has lost the ability to retain any sort of past. Either that or he is doing this on purpose to mess with me. Still, due to his obvious psychosis, I tend to lean more towards the former. If this is indeed the case, and he is unable, rather than unwilling, to relate his past, my theory is that he re-invents himself all the time, perhaps several times a day. This might also explain why he doesn't seem to realize he's wearing make-up some days, but still reapplies it every so often. Still, given his habit of trying to play with my mind, I can't rule out the possibility of this all being one big game to him._

_November 20, 2008. This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham recording on case 4213, Patient 82591J, real name unknown, alias Joker. For the first time since he has been here, Joker actually requested his shower this morning. All other times he has been bathed here have been forced, usually under sedation. However, this morning, at wash time, Joker pounded on his cell door and asked the guard if he could go with the rest of the patients to the showers. However, what happened there was less of a breakthrough than I had hoped for._

Joker trudged down the hall in the line of inmates toward the showers. While a number of the others were not restrained, Joker still had shackles around his wrists and ankles. On either side of him were armed guards.

"You, smiley," Joker said to the guard on his right, who gave him a severe look. "Doctor Arkham gave you my greasepaint, right?"

"Yeah, I've got it. Now shut up and get going."

The first five minutes of shower time went normally. Joker washed the old, cracked makeup from his face, then got out of the shower, dressed and reapplied his makeup. Behind him, Jonathan Crane was drying himself and putting on his jumpsuit.

"Tell me, Doctor Crane," Joker said, not turning around but watching Crane in the mirror, "what scares the Scarecrow?"

"I could ask the same of you," Crane said, turning to face the mirror. "I've heard a lot about you. Guys around here have even started saying you're fearless, that nothing scares you."

"And what do you think, Doctor Crane?" Joker tilted his chin upwards and licked his lips, watching Crane over his shoulder.

"No one is fearless, Joker. Not even you."

"Perhaps you'd like to test that theory. What do you say I cut your lungs out right here, right in front of those guards with the shotguns? I'll do it, you know. I'm not afraid of them."

"You couldn't hurt me if you tried. You have no weapons here." Before Crane knew what was happening, Joker whirled around, tearing a seam in the leg of his pants and pulled out a fork. He jammed it into Crane's side and twisted it, cackling in his face as he did so. Just as quickly, the guards were on top of him, one radioing for a doctor.

_I have to admit that I'm not quite sure what to do with Joker at this point. His violent outbursts are frequent and random. He will attack anyone at any time, given the opportunity. The pain of others is a source of humor to him. I've never seen someone laugh so much at violence as he does. I'm inclined to give up and send him to the state penitentiary to serve the rest of his life term, but at the same time I just can't seem to bring myself to let him go. He clearly suffers from several disorders, the most prevalent being his Anti-social Personality Disorder, and patients like him are hard to come by and provide a great opportunity for study._

_ November 24, 2008. This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham recording on case 4213, Patient 82591J, real name unknown, alias Joker. While several of Joker's stories about his past involve women and falling in love, he seems to have no interest in women at all. Unlike many of the patients here, Joker has no history of sexual violence, and may be the only patient here who doesn't make passes at the nurses. This, to me, is further proof that he disregards all human life no matter what race, age or gender that life may be. I offer up today's session as proof._

Once again Joker sat strapped to his chair because of his unwillingness to cooperate with the guards. Dr. Arkham walked in and sat down at the table. He thumbed through a few manila envelopes then sat back and stared at Joker over the top of his glasses.

"I want to know about the first time you killed someone," he said.

Joker swayed in his seat for a moment, his head cocked to the left, and ran his tongue over his lips. "Now that's an interesting story," he said, leaning toward Dr. Arkham. "But it's pretty bloody. You sure you want to hear it?" He licked his lips again in anticipation.

"I told you I did, didn't I?" Arkham said, sitting forward and jotting a note.

"Well," Joker said, leaning back in his chair again, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling and one eyebrow cocking, "it was a few years ago now. I was…oh…twenty-three or twenty-four."

"And how old are you now?" Arkham asked, hoping to catch Joker off-guard and get a real piece of information from him.

"A lady never reveals her true age," Joker said, laughing wildly. He calmed down a bit and continued between stifled giggles, "but in all seriousness. I was in my early twenties, and there was this hooker. I can't remember her name, it probably wasn't real. Anyway, I wasn't as…evolved then as I am now. I was reckless. It was my first piece of work, after all." He leaned forward again and wagged a finger, "You never forget your first job, am I right, Doctor?"

"True. My first job was selling magazine subscriptions. About that hooker…" he was hoping to get something on Joker he could use.

"Don't rush a good story. Now, like I said, I was in my early twenties. I was walking along Morgan Street late one night, I had a knife in my pocket. A _big_ knife, and it was burning a hole there. Then, I saw her. She was standing just at the edge of a black alleyway. You know Morgan Street, don't you, Doctor? Dark, dirty little street not far from here, lots of vermin there. Anyway, there she was. I remember she had a sleek little black dress, red heels, blonde hair. She was beautiful."

"She…aroused you?"

"Very much. That knife in my pocket popped a stiffy!" Joker began to laugh again. When he settled down he continued. "Oh, she turned me on, alright, but not in the way you would think. I heard her call to me 'hey, stud, looking for a good time?' I went up to her, asked her how much '$300 for a straight fuck, $350 up the ass,' she said to me. 'Too much!' I said, and I clapped a hand over her mouth and shoved her back into the dark alley. No one was around, no one saw. I shoved her back against a dumpster. She hit it pretty hard and slumped to the ground. She saw me pull out the knife and screamed. Then she tried to scurry away, first on her hands and knees, then trying to get to her feet. Her heel broke, though, and she fell forward again. I crouched down and rolled her onto her back. 'Shush,' I said to her, 'you'll spoil the fun!" She screamed again, and I remember laughing. I knelt on her legs to keep her from getting up. She still punched at me with her hands, but I managed to get hold of her wrists with one of my hands and hold them over her head. She was still screaming, but no one came. I put the knife in her mouth, and she tried to scream. Tears were running down her face. It was beautiful, the way the glints of moonlight caught on those tears. Her soul was there. I knew everything about her in a moment. 'What a life you've lead,' I said to her, taking the knife from her mouth and running the point down her chin. She whimpered, oh what a sound that whimper!, as I ran the point down her throat, drawing a fine line of blood as I did, down to the top of her dress. I slit the dress and pulled it away." Joker paused for a moment and licked his lips. "Have you ever really _looked_ at the human torso, Doctor? It looks an awful lot like a face that needs a smile. Hers did, too. Those white breasts and the dark nipples, so much like eyes. I dragged my knife down to her bellybutton and, with two quick strokes, there was a big, red, juicy smile! She started screaming again and I put the knife back in her mouth. It was then that I gave her scars, like mine. Which reminds me, would you like to know how I got these scars?"

"You've already told me, Joker. Go on."

"What more is there to say? Once she had her smiles my work was done. She was complete. I slit her throat and watched the black-looking blood flow to the sidewalk. Blood looks like ink in the moonlight. It's wonderful."

_As soon as the session was over, I called the police and gave them a description of the crime Joker claimed to have committed. A search on their end turned up a matching crime, but they said no evidence was collected on that case. Without it, they said, there would be no way to link it to Joker, and they'd be just as happy to leave it that way._

_ November 30, 2008. This is Dr. Jeremiah Arkham recording on case 4213, Patient 82591J, real name unknown, alias Joker. As much as I hate to say it at this early date, I don't think there will ever be any reaching Joker. He is consistently uncooperative and it seems impossible to get more than one or two truthful stories out of him. Half the time I feel like I am the one being analyzed by him! When they called me to come back and once again be in charge of the hospital after Doctor Crane became ill, I had no idea that I would ever be involved with such a man. I am not giving up on Joker yet, though. I hate to give up on a patient so early. Still, I've never met a patient like him. He fits no known psychological profile, but instead makes up one all of his own, almost as he sees fit._


End file.
